~ The Creator of Mike Malone

Tag Archives: chocolate

A recent trip to York and a visit to a wonderful chocolate shop gave me the inspiration for a ‘new’ flavour bread. The Cocoa House in York is a place you must visit. The hot chocolates, the cakes and, in fact, every one of their dishes is a delight. The highlight was a slice of chocolate stout cake. Words can’t describe it. It was rich and sweet and gooey and bitter all in one. Amazing. All of which got me thinking about bread. I use beer regularly when I make bread, experimenting with different ales to find different flavours. I use chocolate drops when I make my strawberry and white chocolate bread. But stout and chocolate – that I had to try.

So, I bought a bottle of London Porter – rich and dark – to which I added some boiled water to provide me with the warm liquid for the dough. Then, I melted half a bar of Lindt 70% chocolate into the beer/water mix. That was the liquid to add to my flour and yeast.

The result a chocolate-coloured loaf which had a wonderful bitterness offset by a hint of rich chocolate. I count that as a success and it will definitely be a bread that I will be making again. I have bought some Double Chocolate beer this week, so I see another experiment in the near future.

I have spent the day getting messy in the kitchen and I don’t mind sharing bakes that are not perfect. I just love baking days and as for licking the spoon, well, I’ll never get tired of that.

Strawberry and chocolate bread was first. Having made raspberry and white chocolate bread before with varying success, I decided to have a go using fruit tea rather than fruit. Twinings strawberry and raspberry tea was the liquid of choice for my dough and I added a handful of chocolate chips, just because I could. Is there any other reason? The bread looks ok, I haven’t tried it yet – I’ll let you know.

Next on the list was a chocolate and salted caramel cake. Now, believe it or not, I have reached the ripe old age of ** and have never, ever made ordinary caramel, let alone salted caramel. This was going to be a first and it would either be marvellous or disastrous. It worked and that was one spoon I enjoyed tasting.

As for the cake, well, I made a normal 3 egg sponge and added melted chocolate – 3/4 of a bar of Lindt caramel with a touch of sea salt. The filling, I grated the remaining quarter of the chocolate and added it to butter cream. A layer of salted caramel sauce was spread on the bottom half of the cake, then the flavoured buttercream and then the top half of the cake. A drizzle of salted caramel to finish.

However, I had so much salted caramel left over – too much to naughtily finish myself. What to do? As I had some bars of dark chocolate in the cupboard, the solution was simple. Salted caramel chocolates. Now I have never attempted a filled chocolate before so I knew I was going to be having lots of sticky fun. And I did!!!! How are you supposed to line tiny little moulds? The answer – badly. Nevertheless, I created chocolates that might not look professional. Be honest, you can see the pic – they do not look in the least bit professional – but – they are super scrummy.

And I still have a lot of caramel sauce left. What shall I do with that tomorrow?

Having tried various types of beer in my bread with some success, I’ve decided to experiment a bit this week. For my first loaf, I soaked sultanas in Earl Grey tea. The sultanas made the loaf lovely and sweet, but I didn’t get the Earl Grey hit. I think that next time I will just use Earl Grey tea as my liquid and forget the sultanas.

But my second loaf – wow!

I dropped a couple of these teabags into hot water to stew for an hour before I used the liquid to mix the dough. The flavour is wonderful, there is a real bite to this loaf.

So – on my next trip to the supermarket, I’m doing to be buying lots of different fruit teas. How does strawberry tea bread with chocolate chips sound? That is definitely the next one on my list. Watch this space.

Time for me to share another baking experience. Chocolate, almond and orange biscotti – courtesy of a Paul Hollywood recipe. Although he made it look so much easier.

I suppose, like me, you see all of the recipes entries on Facebook and the like – with all of the pictures of perfect kitchens and perfect bakes. That’s not me- as evidenced by some of my other blog entries. With my entries you see warts and all – disasters, half disasters and the things that didn’t turn out too bad after all. Baking is a perfect antidote to writing; after a couple of chapters of Mike Malone and his latest escapade, it’s nice to disappear under a cloud of flour – and believe me I do.

But back to the biscotti – a double baked biscuit. My dough – made up of plain flour, sugar, baking powder and two eggs was a lot stiffer than I was expecting. The recipe called for 2-3 eggs – I used 2 but maybe I should have used 3. Next time, I will try adding more beaten egg. To my dough I added melted chocolate, orange zest, a splash of orange juice and some chopped almonds. Once everything was mixed, I divided the dough into two sausages and baked. Now, I found that I needed to bake my bicsotti a lot longer than the recipe stated, they were very, very soft when the timer went off. So, when I was satisfied that they were baked, I pulled them out of the oven, sliced the sausages into little biscuits and baked them again.

Now I know biscotti are hard little biscuits to be dunked. I think that mine are maybe too hard. I think I could build a house with mine – but – once they do eventually soften in a mug of coffee, they taste pretty good. Here patience is definitely a virtue, they don’t need a dunk, they need a soak. But isn’t there a saying that the best things are worth waiting for – or something like that?

So, baking done, I’ll return to my writing as I would like to get the next Mike Malone published just after Easter and I’m a little behind schedule at the moment. Although, there is another recipe that I need to try. I’ll keep you posted.

What are your guilty pleasures? Eighteen months ago, I would have said a box of expensive chocolates, consumed while curled up on the sofa watching a film on the TV. Now, the chocolates have gone. A re-training of my eating habits over the past year and a half means that chocolate is no longer on the menu – I have lost too much weight to wish to return to my old way of life.

I know that I sound sanctimonious, but I’m not. Honestly. My life used to revolve around food. I lived to eat and eat I would. The sweeter, the richer the food the better. As for carbohydrates, they were my comfort. Plates of pasta, risotto, chips. I ate it all and I enjoyed it all and my waistline increased. I spent my thirties being obese, I spent my forties being obese, and upon getting to the mid-point in my fifties, I realised that if I didn’t act, I would have spent over half of my life being obese. Added to this, my hips gave me pain, my knees gave me pain and I couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs without getting breathless. I needed to do something before it was too late.

The catalyst was my son moving to Canada. The thought of squeezing myself into an airline seat, the thought of having to ask for a larger seat-belt and have other passengers nudge each other and whisper as the attendant carried it through the cabin. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. That was the spark that I needed.

I’m not saying it was easy, but changing my lifestyle has been one of the best things that I have ever done. I stopped eating pasta, I stopped eating rice, I stopped eating potatoes. Bread I kept. I love bread and I love making bread, so every lunchtime, I have a sandwich. I haven’t given up chocolate entirely either. Every night, I would have a small portion of chocolate, I still do. That small act was a lifesaver in the beginning. If I had cut chocolate out of my diet totally, I would have craved it. After all, don’t we always want that which we can’t have? But I allowed myself chocolate every day. I found new ways of cooking my favourite foods. I still have the pasta sauces, but for pasta, now read courgette ribbons. I still have cottage pie, but instead of mashed potato I use mashed carrots and swede. However, when my husband and I eat out, then I allow myself a treat. I will always study a menu carefully and I tend to opt for the chicken dishes, but not always. Occasionally, I will also have a dessert, but I find that, actually, I don’t always want one. My palate has changed and I no longer crave sweetness all of the time. A meal out doesn’t ‘break the bank’ because once back home, I slip straight back into my usual routine.

I am now about half the woman that I once was and I love clothes shopping. The feeling of walking into a shop and knowing that EVERYTHING in there now fits me, is wonderful. I’m wearing clothes now that I could only dream of months ago. My confidence has grown and my hips and knees no longer hurt. As for stairs, when we visited Castle Loma in Toronto last summer, I walked the 100 steps up to the castle without stopping and without losing breath. Look up Baldwin Steps, Toronto on Google. I also climbed the tower in the picture.

I’ve got my life back. After spending nearly 30 years being fat and unhealthy, I now aim to grasp however many years I have remaining with both hands. My guilty pleasure is no longer chocolate, it’s shopping! And long may it continue.

I am not a brilliant cook by any means, I have a go and the finished products, although looking ‘rustic’ are usually good to eat. Therefore, when my Dad asked me to make a birthday cake for his 93rd birthday, how could I refuse?

The cake itself was ok, the tricky part was the decorating. I would love to see a TV cook covered in icing sugar and chocolate for once; they always seem to wear the finest silks and don’t even bother with an apron. How do they do it? The first layer of cream went on fine – I thought I was doing well, but I was actually being lulled into a sense of false security. The chocolate fingers found their way around the cake with no problems and those that were broken were swiftly dealt with which is something else you never see Mary Berry or Jamie Oliver doing. When did you last see a TV cook polish off the biscuits that were left over?

With the row of fingers complete, I thought I was winning. Only the piping and the decorations left to do. I filled the piping bag with rich chocolate frosting. I squeezed the piping bag and my first little swirl appeared as if by magic – at the same time as a dollop of frosting emerged from the top of the bag all over my hands. I carried on regardless, leaving a trail of escaping frosting behind me, but at least the swirls were in place.

Only the decorations to do, truffles to place up on the cake, candles to go in pride of place and I was finished. Looking at the finished cake and the silver board, you would never know that the kitchen was a disaster area. But I’m not telling anyone. It’s our secret, ok?